Thursday, April 11, 2013

A curious case of Uranium 235 offered for sale to US embassy in Nepal

The
latest tranche of US diplomatic cables exposed by WikiLeaks has
brought out into open, an interesting aspect of US-India relationship
in the 1970's decade or during Kissinger years. This episode began
with US embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal being approached by a Nepali
businessman Mr. J.C. Thakur, to sell Uranium-235 to the Embassy.

On
26th
September 1973, Kathmandu embassy sent a cable to US state department
in Washington DC, informing them about attempt of this businessman.
They also sent an intimation to US consulate in New Delhi. On the
very next day, US consulate in New Delhi responded and informed
Washington that this information should be conveyed to Government of
India as the offered Uranium is likely to be from Indian sources.
Their cable as exposed by WikiLeaks says:

“Embassy
would appreciate guidance from the department on whether we should
bring this offer to the attention of the Indian government. We
believe we should do so. We are confident the GoI would not permit or
facilitate such a “sale”. If U-235 has been smuggled from nuclear
power facilities in the Bombay area, it has almost certainly been
stolen and the GoI should be informed,”

Expressing
their opinion that this offer is more like to be a hoax, the cable
adds further:

“GoI
should still be told we have been approached with a sale offer of
purported U-235 smuggled from secret Bombay facilities. We believe
that leveling with the GoI on this case would contribute to the
atmosphere of trust and confidence in which we would like to deal
with the Indians on peaceful uses of nuclear energy,”

Concurrently,
the U.S. Consulate in Mumbai, which was informed about the offer,
also came out with advice for New Delhi and Kathmandu on how to deal
with U-235 in close proximity. It however refused to make any inquiry
with the Indian Department of Atomic Energy, on possible loss of
fissile material and said:

“Congen
[Consul General] has no relevant background on this matter or on J.C.
Thakur. We will report any information which may come up on Thakur
but hesitate make any inquiries at Indian DAE for fear arousing
Indians’ suspicions.”

Washington
cleared the request of New Delhi consulate in a week's time. It told
the Kathmandu embassy to procure samples from the seller. It also
advised New Delhi consulate, to use its discretion and apprise the
Government of India informally of offer and indicate that we are
attempting to obtain sample for analysis and will inform them of
results.

Accordingly
New Delhi consulate informed External Affairs Ministry, Government
of India about the offer by Nepali businessman Thakur and his
approach to the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu. It also clarified to the
MEA officials, that the Kathmandu Embassy was trying to get a sample
for analysis and would inform the Indian government of the results.

Meanwhile
Nepali businessman Thakur approached US consulate in Kathmandu and
offered to lower down the price to US$ 35000 per Kg from the initial
offer price of US$ 40000, and assured that he was in a position to
supply 2 to 3 Kg of Uranium every month.

US
consulate in Mumbai also informed
The Indian Department of Atomic Energy chairman Homi Sethna, who was
in direct touch with U.S. officials on the issue. He came up with a
trivial but important issue. If the Uranium samples are sent
to the U.S. for testing, US government would be actually associating
itself with unauthorized shipment of nuclear materials. He therefore
offered the Department of Atomic energy facilities in Mumbai for this
test in the presence of U.S representatives.

However
it is not known, whether Mr. Thakur really supplied any material in
Kathmandu? If anything was supplied at all , where was it tested?
Mumbai or in US? Only thing that is known is that there was no
Uranium involved at all. It was a big hoax.

What
is perhaps more important is to note the atmosphere of trust and
confidence that existed between US and Indian Governments and
willingness to share intelligence with each other, prior to India's
first underground Nuclear test in Rajasthan in 1974. This was broken
after that and only after the civil nuclear deal signed by President
Bush in 2006-07, some amount of old trust and confidence could be
regained.